Sunday, June 08, 2014

Swift: A Post-PC Programming Language
The WWDC 2014 keynote had a lot of news for developers, as it should, but none was as big as the introduction of Swift (https://developer.apple.com/swift/), a new programming language that was described as "Objective-C without the C." In other words, it's a Post-PC language.
In my explanation of how other, more knowledgeable people have described "Post-PC" (http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/03/04/understanding-post-pc/), I summed up by saying "a Post-PC device is a PC without the baggage." They ditch the legacy cruft that has built up over the years and start fresh with a new way of doing things. That's what Swift does.
This move was necessary for Apple. Objective-C is 30 years old, born of the PC era, chosen for iOS because of its roots in OS X. Swift, according to someone who worked on it, is four years old (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/06/06/lattner), built specifically for iOS and OS X. Apple realized after releasing the SDK for iOS that they needed something built for iOS, and they built it. We'll see how well they built it, but credit for recognizing the need.[+/-] Hide/Show Text[+/-] Hide/Show Text